2021 Pittsburgh Pirates Rum Bunter Staff Prediction: Noah Wright

Cy Young and Breakout Pitcher: Mitch Keller

This is going to be the year Mitch Keller finally gets a shot at somewhat of a normal season. There’s only one way to describe Keller’s career so far, and that would be weird.

Last season, Keller had a 2.91 ERA despite walking more batters than he struck out with a 16/18 K/BB ratio, surrendered 4 home runs in 21.1 innings, was below average in exit velocity and hard hit rate and none of his ERA estimators, that being FIP, xFIP, SIERA, DRA and xERA, had him as a pitcher with an ERA lower than 6.00. This was because of a .104 batting average on balls in play and 93.8% stranded rate.

Then you look at his 2019 season. Keller had a fantastic 28.6% strikeout rate, 7% walk rate, HR/9 of just 1.13 in the most homerun-laden season of all time, an above average exit velo and hard hit rate and all his ERA estimators pointing towards more of a 3.50-3.80 ERA pitcher. But a .475 BABip and 59.6% stranded rate led to an ERA of 7.13.

Keller is looking for normalcy in 2021 and I think he finally has it. Keller’s three primary pitches, a four-seam fastball, slider and curveball, are all above average pitches according to FanGraphs. Both his fastball and curveball are considered 55-grade offerings and his slider is seen as a 60-grade pitch. His change-up hasn’t looked great so far, but he has a 55-current/60-future command grade.

Plus, the last time Keller pitched at least 100 innings was at Triple-A in 2019. He tossed 103.2 innings while having a 3.56 ERA, 3.60 FIP, 1.24 WHIP, 28.2% strikeout rate, 8% walk rate, 0.78 HR/9 and 3.87 xFIP. Among all Triple-A pitches with at least 100 innings pitched, he was the league leader in FIP, xFIP, strikeout rate, was 5th in ERA, WHIP and the only stat he wasn’t among the top pitchers in was walk rate, but was still overall above average.